A Cute Rhino
by Standard-Ang3l
Summary: Macy's sick and Kevin gets roped into taking care of her. Cutesy Kacy!


The beginning of this was written by Beth/Poet on the Run. She handed it over to me because she was stuck. Apparently, she really, REALLY likes what I did with this story.

Yes, I know Nacy is now canon, but I don't give a rip. Fanfiction doesn't have to be about canon pairings. So HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HA.

I'll get WIHMM and Pirates stuff up soon, and then I'll get to work on some other stuff. xD Pinky promise.

* * *

Life sucked. It really did. There was no way to measure the amount of suckage that life consisted of, really, because it simply sucked too much.

Why, you ask? Why did life suck so epically much?

Because Macy Misa was sick.

And Kevin Lucas was the one man elected out of her group of friends to go and see if she was doing alright.

Of course, that wasn't entirely it. If it were any other time, place, or universe, Kevin would have been happy to go see her, regardless of the reason.

Well, maybe.

She was mostly over them being rock stars, sure. But the injuring them thing still cropped up every now and then. And her imagination sometimes got out of hand and led to a brief fainting spell. And she _had_ pretty much ripped his clothes to shreds a couple months ago, but that was solely because Stella had _thought_ she'd perfected her Stell-cro.

No, the other reason life sucked totally and epically was simple: Kevin wasn't sure he could handle being alone with Macy for a prolonged period of time. And not in the really-afraid-of-her-fangirlish-dangerous-slightly-creepy-demeanor sort of way. Because, honestly, his fear of her had faded along with her star-struck…ness.

Kevin wasn't sure he could handle Macy Misa in that if-I'm-alone-with-her-for-more-than-eight-seconds-I'll-kiss-the-living-daylights-out-of-her kind of way.

And he was sure Stella knew that. After all, how else was it that everyone who even knew Macy Misa's _name_ somehow _MAGICALLY_ busy at the same time, thus leaving him as the only person with a few free hours? (Because of _course_ a person should spend at _LEAST_ three hours with a sickly friend in need.) He was also sure that Stella would find a way to make him _pay_ if he left a single second before those three hours was up.

So, there it was.

The reason that life sucked completely.

"_Why does Stella insist on meddling in my life when she can't even get a handle on hers?" _he thought to himself as he walked in the door.

Macy Misa may not have been the most graceful girl in the world, but she could usually be counted on to be in good physical condition. She was, after all, a star athlete that could hit, throw, catch, or kick any ball that came her way. She could run the Hundred Meter Dash easily, with time to spare. She could swim with more ease than a fish.

But now, none of that mattered. No matter how lithe and fast she may have been, she could not dodge or outrun _acute viral rhinopharyngitis__._

_The common cold._

She sniffled miserably and reached for a tissue. Just before she blew her nose, she grumbled to herself, "I hate being sick."

And then she let loose on the poor, defenseless Kleenex, startling the boy who had just approached her open bedroom door. He hadn't heard such a loud honking since…well, that time with the flock of geese at the park and the bread which somehow led to him disrupting a wedding.

"Um, hey, there," Kevin said slowly, knocking on the door twice. He barely kept himself from wincing when she whipped around to face him.

"_Kevin_? What are _you_ doing here?" Macy asked incredulously. She was so shocked that she didn't even think to put her tissue in the designated bag right away. She blinked twice, very deliberately, as though to make sure she wasn't imagining things. "Stella said that _she_ was coming to see me today."

"Well, thanks _ever so much_ for the warm welcome," Kevin joked. He smiled just a bit when Macy flushed and he waved off her apologies. "Can I come in?"

"Oh, um, yeah." Macy stammered. She was about to gesture to a nearby desk chair when she realized that she was still holding her used Kleenex. A disgusted grimace crossed her face and she quickly shoved the tissue in the bag that hung from her bed post. Why was she always embarrassing herself? Especially in front of Kevin? "The desk chair should be open—that's just my mom's dressing gown. I was using it to keep warm downstairs."

Kevin bobbed his head and draped the garment he'd picked up over the back of the chair. He sat hesitantly and looked around him. Macy glanced around also, wondering if she had left any JONAS-abilia for the fan club where he could see it. Or any of her unmentionables. Either one would be really, really embarrassing. Finding none of either, she relaxed. Kevin, however, continued to look around.

"This is nice," he said, noting that there were only two JONAS posters on the walls—the rest of the space was filled with shelves that held innumerable sports trophies and posters of the girl's favorite athletes. "I expected your room to be a bit more…"

"JONAS-y?" Macy asked, smiling a bit as she reached for another tissue. This time she tried to blow her nose a bit more quietly, aware that she had company. When she had finished, she continued, "It used to be. But I made a deal with myself—if I started to make friends with you guys, the posters would have to come down. For every two photos my mom added to her photo album, I took down a JONAS poster and put up an old one. I think I'm going to keep what I've got now, though. It's a good balance."

"Balance is good," Kevin said with a nod.

"Yeah."

This was uncomfortable. She was sitting there huddled under a blanket, blowing her nose loudly and Kevin was sitting in her desk chair, looking as if he really didn't want to be there. She tried not to let the disappointment show on her face and quickly jumped off her bed.

"I'm hungry. My mom made me up some soup and stuff. Want to go down and get some?" Macy asked.

"Sure," he said. Macy pulled the robe off the back of the chair and was struggling to get into when Kevin helped her out, pulling one of the arms straight and untangling the sash.

"Thanks," Macy said softly. They stared at each other a long moment before Macy sneezed loudly. She grabbed the box of Kleenex with an embarrassed grimace on her face, thanking her lucky stars she had managed to cover her face instead of snotting on Kevin.

"Come on," she said, pulling on his arm as she went down the stairs. She quickly let go though and fished around in her pockets for a bottle of hand sanitizer. "Here," she said, "hold out your hand. No need to be getting sick on my account."

"Well, if I do get sick, do I have the promise that you'll take care of me?" he asked quietly as she squeezed a drop of the lemon-scented liquid into his hand.

"Yeah. Soup, popsicles, movies, whatever you need, I'll get it."

"Stuffed animals?" Macy suppressed a smile. Kevin was a kid at heart and she kind of loved it. Things were more fun with him.

"Yes, Kevin. I'll get you stuffed animals."

"A hippo? A giraffe? A rhino?"

"As long as you don't want _my_ rhino…"

"You have a rhino?" Kevin asked excitedly.

"Yes. Its name is Ezra. I've had him since I was three. He's sitting on the couch in front of the TV." She picked him up from the couch and showed him to Kevin. "I'd let you hold him, but he's been my pillow for the past two days."

"It's just a cold, right? No upset stomach or sore throat or anything like that?" Kevin asked.

"Nothing except _Acute viral rhinopharyngitis._"

"A cute rhino?" Kevin asked, tugging Ezra from Macy's grasp.

"Yes, Ezra is, isn't he?" Macy replied, trying to pull him back.

"I meant what you just said—acute rhino…something."

"Acute viral rhinopharyngitis. It's the medical term for the common cold."

"Oh…well, I prefer a cute rhino; much more fun."

"Yes a cute rhino would be more fun...but I have the cold _and_ the cute rhino-"

"And me," Kevin supplied. He tossed Ezra in the air and caught him, grinning at Macy.

"And you," Macy said with a soft smile. She suddenly felt a little dizzy and shook her head. "Come on," she said, grabbing his arm, "I need food."

They got into the kitchen and Macy opened the fridge. "There's the soup," she said, handing a tall container to him. "There's some bread on top of the fridge and the soup pot is in the cabinet by the stove. Get it out for me please?"

"How about I just make it for you?" he offered.

"You…cook?" Macy asked with a furrowed brow.

"Just because I can't bake, doesn't mean I can't _cook. _The two are completely different, you know. Besides, all I have to do is dump the soup in the pot and heat it up. Not that hard."

"Could I talk you into toasting the bread for me?"

"You could," Kevin said as he poured the soup into the pot and turned on the stove. "If there's something in it for me."

"Like what?"

"Cookies?" he said with a hopeful, goofy smile. Macy let out a light laugh.

"What kind of cookies?"

"We have lemon shortbread and Mexican chocolate chip."

"Homemade?"

"By yours truly. Before I got sick of course."

"Of course."

"I'm still a little dizzy, so I'm going to go sit down. I can put a movie in or something?" she offered.

"A movie is good."

"Any requests?"

"Anything's fine with me."

"Sherlock Holmes it is, then."

"That sounds good," Kevin said to Macy before she left the kitchen and made her way to the living room and popped the DVD into the player. The menu appeared onscreen and she settled onto the couch. A few minutes later Kevin came into the room and presented her with a tray of food. A big bowl of soup, a few pieces of toasted bread, a glass of orange juice and a few cookies.

"Thank you, Kevin," Macy said softly as she started eating, "Hey. This actually tastes good. Nice job."

"Didn't your mom make this earlier today?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, I can't take credit for it then. It's your mom's doing."

"Nooo…I ate some earlier today and it just wasn't appetizing," she put the spoon down and looked up at him. "You had to have something to do with making this taste good."

"Fine, you caught me. I'm magic," Kevin said with a smirk. He lazily placed his arm behind her on the back of the couch.

Macy froze. She couldn't breathe. Kevin had his arm around her. She placed the tray on the coffee table just in case she suffered a fangirl moment. They watched the rest of the movie in relative silence apart from random commentary. Afterward, Kevin took the tray back to the kitchen and started loading the dishwasher.

"You _are_ magic," Macy said.

Kevin looked up, "Why?"

"Uh," Macy said, pointing at the dishwasher. "Not even I do that."

"Well, you should learn some manners then."

"I don't think so. I'd rather be loud, rude and uncouth," she said as she flounced out of the kitchen. Kevin watched her go, smiling to himself. Then he heard something from the living room that he wasn't expecting. Macy singing. Very well. And then what song she was singing hit him. _Baby._ By that pretty boy Justin Bieber. He wouldn't call him Justin Beaver like most people because beavers were adorable and that prepubescent kid wasn't.

He carefully made his way to the doorway of the kitchen and stared at Macy as she bounced around the living room singing that annoyingly catchy song. In spite of her song choice, he found Macy singing well to be almost as cute as Macy singing badly.

He was going to have to work on her song choices though. As their number one super fan, she should be singing a JONAS song…or anything _not _Bieber. He allowed himself one last look at her before leaving her be.

Macy stopped singing. Was it her imagination or could she feel Kevin's eyes on her? She walked into the kitchen.

"Kevin? Were you watching me sing?" she asked as innocently as possible.

"Uhh…yeah…" he answered, hiding his face.

"Why?" she was blinking up at him. He hated these questions. She looked so cute staring up at him and he wasn't sure how much he could take.

"Because…you sounded _really _good. Have you been practicing or something?"

"No…sometimes it just happens. When I'm sick. It can't be a sore throat though. Why do you ask?"

"Like I said…you sounded good. I mean…I've gotten used to your normal voice, but it's nice to not have to worry about passing out."

"Well, I'm glad you're happy Kevin," she said. "I'm going up to my room real quick, okay?"

"Okay."

She climbed the stairs to her room and sat on her bed. So…Kevin liked it when she could sing, huh? Well, she always remembered her mom telling her to not go outside with wet hair when it was cold. There had to be other old wives' tales about getting sick…if it got her Kevin's attention, she was going to sing well even if it killed her.


End file.
